Chicago International Film Festival announces 2025 lineup

Calling all cinephiles: The Chicago International Film Festival Thursday announced its lineup of nearly 120 feature films and 70 shorts from more than 60 countries that will show at next month’s event, which will take place across the city.

The festival, which has often been a preview of international films that go on to be Oscar nominees, will begin on Oct. 15. The city’s most prominent film festival will kick off with the world premiere of director Kevin Shaw’s film “One Golden Summer,” which tells the true story of Chicago’s Jackie Robinson West Little League’s dramatic highs and lows.

The slate also includes “Rental Family” from Japanese filmmaker Hikari, which stars Brendan Fraser as an American actor who lands an unusual gig playing a stand-in loved one for strangers in Tokyo. The film will be shown as the festival’s centerpiece. And, “Eternity” — a David Freyne-directed romantic comedy about the afterlife, powered by lead Elizabeth Olsen — will close the festival on Oct. 26.

“I think it's a great year for cinema, for international cinema, but also for some of the higher profile titles we're excited to introduce,” said Mimi Plauché, the festival’s artistic director. She added that it’s important for the festival to feature a mix of established filmmakers, alongside up-and-coming directors, since “part of the DNA of the festival is discovery.”

This year, the festival fielded more than 8,000 films from around the world. Among the crop of submissions, Plauché said it was a strong year for Japanese and Italian films and overall, many had a focus on telling coming-of-age stories. A lot of movies with that theme appear on the lineup, including the Spanish film “Strange River,” which follows a family on a bike trip across Germany. There’s also a Japanese film called “Brand New Landscape,” which follows a pair of siblings whose mother has died as they navigate their new relationship with their estranged father.

The films will show at venues across the city, including the festival’s hub, AMC NewCity 14 in Lincoln Park, along with the Gene Siskel Film Center downtown and the Logan Center for the Arts in Hyde Park. This year, the festival has also expanded its community screening partnership to include free films at Englewood’s Kennedy-King College and the National Museum of Mexican Art in Pilsen.

The festival will also include a visit from the Criterion Mobile Closet — the widely popular, rolling collection of more than 1,700 films from around the world. Film festival attendees will be able to line up and explore the collection for themselves.

All those initiatives are about attracting a wide and diverse audience to partake in the programming, Plauché said. This year’s festival arrives at a moment when diversity has been under attack on the federal level — and, in other arts genres, some international creatives have opted not to visit the United States at this time.

As an international event, Plauché said diversity is baked into the festival and that commitment remains central to its mission. And so far, they haven’t heard from directors who will skip this year’s event due to the United States’ political climate.

“I do think that Chicago is recognized as an open and international city,” Plauché said. “I think there's still strong interest in Chicago and being a part of a festival that's set in Chicago.”

Tickets for individual screenings, which begin at $17, go on sale at 11 a.m. Friday for members and on Sept. 26 for the general public.

Courtney Kueppers is an arts and culture reporter at WBEZ.